Aloha and welcome to Wedding Wednesdays Q&A from Hawaii! Yes, we’re back in the aloha state for some awesome destination weddings. And if you didn’t hear, Hawaii just legalized gay marriage! It’s been a long time coming and I am so happy about it. It’s cause for some serious celebration, so our Q&A today is about the most important part of the wedding (and cause for celebration), the ceremony and the wedding recessional song.

Q: I am having the hardest time coming up with a song for when we walk down the aisle. I want it to be happy and feel right, but I just can’t think of anything. I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do. Help please!

Of course! That is what I’m here for. Picking your wedding songs can be difficult, so don’t be too hard on yourself because it’s totally normal to struggle with this. The wedding recessional song is the song that marks probably the happiest time of the day because you’ve just exchanged vows and are now officially married. It’s a wonderful moment and you want your song to express that.

So, the first thing I always recommend to my clients is to pick a song you like. It sounds like a no-brainer, but what you want to do is think about songs that make you happy. When you hear a song on the radio or on your iPod, what immediately makes you smile? It could be an actual song or it could be an artist or a genre of music or a timeframe of music.

Once you’ve narrowed it down a little, think about songs within that category that are meaningful to the two of you somehow. It doesn’t have to be the song that was momentous necessarily, but it should be a song that represents you somehow either in the wording or the beat or the feeling.

Another way to go about finding a song is thinking about what reminds you of your fiancé. Is there an artist or a genre or a timeframe of music that reminds you of him/her or of your relationship? Delve down that path a little and see what you come up with.

Finding the right song is about finding a musical representation of your love, your excitement, and your emotion. It can be something current or something old, something classic or something obscure. It doesn’t matter as long as it makes you happy and feels like the two of you. And the real test is that if you were to imagine hearing it 10 years from now (or 20 or 50 years), it would still make you smile.